


Asenath Will Know the Depths

by Liliriu



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, The Thing on the Doorstep - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Female Edward, Horror, Stockholm Syndrome, Underage Rape/Non-con, lovecraftian ending with a twist, spousal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27173840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liliriu/pseuds/Liliriu
Summary: Same plot as the original, but with a female protagonist, and some other changes which follow quite naturally.Warnings: child abuse, underage rape, spousal abuse, emotional manipulation, Stockholm syndrome.
Relationships: Edward Derby/Daniel Upton, Edward Derby/Ephraim Waite
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	Asenath Will Know the Depths

**Author's Note:**

> Contains a couple of citations/paraphrases from Lovecraft's works. Quite noticeable.

Allison Pickman Derby was a weak-willed individual. During the course of her lifetime, she committed but three acts of defiance, during three consecutive years. Each of those acts led to dire consequences.

She was the only child of an eminent family in the city of Arkham. Being considered a weak, sickly child, sending her to school was out of question, but her doting parents provided her with the best tutors to be found. As she was neither allowed out without a nurse, Allison was lonely; she almost never had chances of meeting other children, and in those rare occasion in which she did meet them, she invariably found that they were not interested in her company.

Only in her dreams was Allison free. In her night-dreams, she would roam the darker, less known corners of the dreamlands, away from the sun and rarely frequented by more cheerful dreamers, riding with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind. In her day-dreams, she would visualize herself committing every kind of torture and murder which she could conceive. Within those fancies, she would first deal with her parents and teachers, then with her other acquaintances, afterwards with the rest of the rest of humanity, and finally with herself, in a desolated land.

By the age of six, Allison started to experiment with poetry. As her tutors found out, she was way too precocious for the usual childish rhymes, and they introduced her into more advanced materials, a path which she soon enough was able to continue without aid. She carefully studied the classics; analyzing the structures, vocabularies and techniques, and spilled into them the grotesque visions which she’d experienced in her night and day-dreams. Her verses were full of alien creatures, ritual sacrifices and labyrinthine architectures.

By the age of seven, the quality of her nightmarish poems had earned her a status of marvel and prodigy. It was a good thing that she could write, because what she could not do was defend herself. Whatever humiliation she would be subject to; whatever display of abuse or neglect, all she could do was freeze and absorb; so to later retreat into her brain, to dream up visions of violence and macabre fantasy, that would be eventually regurgitated as verses.

Allison was eight years old when she met Daniel. Eight years her senior, Daniel was the first child of the Uptons, which were friends with her parents. He was in town for the summer vacation, and the whole family was visiting the Derbys. With her first sight of him, Allison felt devastating sadness. She was used to other children never finding her interesting, even when they were her own age; so she naturally assumed that a boy so much older, and so good looking, could never possibly pay her attention. She retreated to a corner, thinking that it was not even worth to try talking to him, but incapable of running away. She was still sat in her corner, one moment immersed in her thoughts, and the next he was leaning in front of her, smiling. “I am Dan,” he presented himself, “you are Allison, right? They say you are a poet.”

“Who told you?”

Daniel admitted to have been asking around, as he saw such a beautiful girl he did not remember. He had been told that she was a poet and a prodigy, and that her verses were of a macabre nature. All that had sparked his interest even more, since he was himself interested in the macabre and created art of this kind; plastic art, in his case. Allison agreed to show him her poems, and he claimed to be highly impressed by them. They spent the rest of the day talking. The girl did not remember when was the last time that she had enjoyed a conversation.

Afterwards, Daniel came visit her every day of the summer vacation. He would take her out – her parents allowed it, if he was with her – they would go for long walks, and talk the whole time. Their favorite corners were the oldest and most desolated. He showed her his paintings, and made many sketches of her and of the imagery in her poems. He said that they were kindred spirits, and Allison agreed. She doubled her efforts at reading and writing in order to impress him, and her art improved even more. She also became aware of her own beauty, and started to put effort in it as well, almost as much as in her poems.

When the boy left back to school, she was almost inconsolable, but he promised to be back the next summer, and that nothing would change, which was what indeed happened. When Daniel finished school, he started to study Architecture at Miskatonic. He told Allison that he had considered to study in Boston, since that was what his parents wanted, and everyone said that it would give him much better career prospects; but at the end, he had decided to stay in Arkham, since he could no longer bear the thought of being away from his best friend.

As the years passed, the two did not drift away, but only became closer. They would share everything; despite her young age, Daniel would even tell Allison about his relationships with women. The girl did not reveal that she found the topic unpleasant; not because he went into detail – his stories remained fairly abstract – but because she was worried about the possibility of losing him to an older, more available woman. He did not seem to take specific note of her beauty; despite her tight bodices and the time which she would spend taking care of her skin and her hair, the compliment which he had given her during their first meeting had probably been the last one.

When Allison was fourteen years old, she committed her first act of defiance, which consisted in bribing a servant to purchase for her a kit of makeup. In her next meeting with Daniel, she was wearing a particularly revealing dress, her eyelashes were unusually black, and her lips a deep red. Neither of them commented on all that. They went out for one of their usual walks, but it was cold and it was noticeable that Daniel was feeling unwell, so Allison proposed to go somewhere where they could relax and have something to eat. Daniel claimed that he was fine, but Allison kept insisting, so at the end they decided to sit in his apartment for a while, as they would occasionally do.

Daniel fixed Allison some coffee and cake, but said that he himself was not hungry. He walked back and forth, unable to concentrate in her conversation, yet claiming that everything was all right every time she asked. He only seemed to get more and more frenetic and the girl was starting to worry. At the end she got up, put a hand on his shoulder, and forced him to look at her. Daniel lowered his head, and buried it in her chest, sobbing. She was very puzzled, because he had never exhibited a remotely similar behavior before. But she hugged him for a couple of minutes, as his crying slowly relaxed.

When Allison asked, yet again, what the matter was, he said that he could not wait anymore. She asked what for. He did not answer, but started to hesitantly feel her waist with his hands. It was disturbing, but she let him, because he already felt bad, and she didn’t want him to be upset at her. He started touching her more forcibly. She tried to ask him to stop, but her voice would not come out. It was becoming painful, and she tried to get away, but he put his arms around her and locked them so she could not move. She screamed. He shut her mouth with one hand. She tried to escape, but he managed to keep her bound. He pushed her to the sofa, made her lay on her stomach and sat on top of her, forcing her head down with his hands so she could not scream. He raised her skirt, opened his trousers, and forced himself inside her.

Allison knew how sex worked, because she had looked it up in the library, but had never seen a male organ outside a book. This time, she was also not seeing, since her face was fixed to the sofa. Yet she did feel it, along with excruciating pain; and thanks to her developed imagination, she did see it within her mind, in vivid and horrific detail. That was not what she had wanted; she only had wanted Dan to love her, maybe kiss her. But he had not even kissed her. Even if she would had wanted it, she had not imagined that it would hurt so much, like all her muscles being torn apart. There was no pleasure whatsoever in it.

Finally, he was done. He released Allison, sat beside her, pulled her closer and made her lean on his chest, as she cried and he hushed her. The pain was still present, but starting to diminish now that the deed was over; it was starting to feel more like the regular pain one feels after physical exercise. He hugged her neck and kissed her cheek.

“Why?” she asked.

“I told you, I couldn’t wait anymore, I love you.”

“But didn’t you think that it would ruin me? How am I supposed to marry like that?”

“What do you mean? But I am marrying you, you know that I love you. Or maybe you don’t want to marry me? Maybe you don’t love me?”

“You never told me that you loved me or that you had any intention to marry me, how was I supposed to know?”

“Ay, Ally, Ally… It is too obvious that you don’t interact with people enough, I know it’s not your fault…” he caressed her hair, “but see, people sometimes understand things without speaking, not everything has to be said.”

“But what if my parents don’t agree?”

“You are very harsh with your parents, Ally, you don’t seem to understand that they just want what’s best for you. Of course they will agree, they think very highly of me and know how much we love each other.”

“But I still don’t understand, why not marrying me before doing that? You had waited until now, it was just a little bit more.”

“Because I had already waited too much, and it was bad for my health. You see, men are not like women, we have physical needs, biological needs. Don’t you care about me? Or did you want me to go to other women, so maybe I could also fall in love with them and leave you alone? Is that what you wanted? Maybe you did want that, because you don’t love me?”

“No, I do love you, Dan I really do, please don’t be mad at me!”

“Good…” he kissed her once again and hugged her more tightly.

“But Dan…”

“What now?!”

“Why did you not ask me before? I might had agreed, you didn’t have to force me to do it.”

“You are just testing my patience now, you know very well why!”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said timidly, “but I really don’t.”

“I didn’t want to say it because it’s unpleasant. But we both know that you’re weak, Ally, in body and spirit. You would had been too afraid, and even if you wouldn’t, you have low pain tolerance, you can’t deny it, the way you reacted. See, I don’t like virgins, they irritate me, I didn’t want to be irritated by you. Now you are not a virgin anymore, and we can have as much fun as we want.”

Allison wondered how did he know so much about virgins, if he was waiting for her all this time, as he had claimed a moment before. But he would had had an answer for that, probably, as he had an answer for everything.

By the end of the year, Allison was fifteen years old, and engaged to marry Daniel. Without a reason to abstain anymore, they would regularly make love, yet Allison never grew to enjoy it; she would stare at the ceiling, and wait for the act to be over. Around that time, she committed her second act of defiance. Said act did not consist in expressing her desire to study at the university, but in threatening to break the engagement, once he gave her the expected negative answer.

“You are used,” he said, “who do you think will take you if not me?”

She rolled her eyes and sneered. “Are you an idiot? Look at me, everyone will take me.” She theatrically displayed her body to him: big breasts, wide hips, long blond hair and smooth rosy skin. She was right: everyone would take her.

He sighed. “Your body? Childish insults? Are those your bargaining cards? You disappoint me, I thought you had more self-respect. But, whatever, if you want it so much. Just remember that I had advised you against it, and still think that it is a bad idea. I trust you will give it a bit more thought and arrive to the same conclusion. But I can’t stop you, at the end. Anyway, we have already been engaged for a very long time, don’t you think?”

It is true that she had practiced this act in front of the mirror, and had been almost shaking the whole time. It is true that by the age of sixteen her name was Allison Upton. But all that had paid off, she thought, since she was also a freshman at Miskatonic University, majoring in English and French Literature.

Strange as it might seem, she did not foresee her husband’s reaction when, after one of her first days as a student, she arrived home and told him the news – the news being that she had made friends.

“They are all so smart,” she said to him, “also fun, and daring, and rebellious. They want me to go to their meetings…”

“All men, I imagine.”

There was an unexpected darkness in his voice, which she was not prepared for. She froze momentarily. “Most of them are men,” she finally managed to say, “but most of the students in the university are men.”

“And that’s just another reason why I think you have nothing to do there. ‘Daring?’ ‘Rebellious?’ They sound like a bunch of children. You are not a child, and you are not going to any meetings.”

“But I am a child, I am sixteen. Most of them are older than me.”

“No, Ally, you are not a child. You quote being a child the moment you got married. Who would you ‘rebel’ against, anyway? Me? I have no use for a rebellious wife. This nonsense is over. You go to the university, take your classes, and come back home. I want to know your schedule, and if something happens, you call me to the office. You do not befriend any men. It’s either that, or you forget about the university. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Allison wanted to weep; she had willingly surrendered her childhood, without giving it a second thought. But now it was too late to revert it, so she did as she was told: renounced friendships and focused solely in her courses and wife duties. At least at the beginning, because as it often happens, Daniel’s rigidity wore off with time, and she was able to allow herself some secrets.

She did not approach the rebellious group again, but she did add some additional, private studies to the obligatory ones. Those were studies of the occult, facilitated to her by the convenient proximity of the Miskatonic’s library, which was famous by its wide collection of rare, esoteric books. She read things like the frightful Book of Eibon, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, and the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, though she did not tell her husband she had seen them. It was in the library that she met Ephraim: an uncannily attractive man in his thirties, of wild eyes and unkempt beard. She glared at Allison once, and his glare filled her with dread and aberrant enchantment.

Her third, and last, act of defiance, was to become his mistress. The affair seemed to be worth the hassle, the lies, and the lack of sleep which came with it; for now she finally understood why did people make love. That was one reason, but not the only reason, that her fascination constantly escalated; Ephraim was well versed in lust matters, but also in the arcane studies and black magic which had her obsessed, and at which she rapidly progressed under his guidance. As her enthusiasm increased, Allison became less and less careful, and Daniel more and more suspicious. One time, while she was lying next to his lover, he told her, “your husband is outside.”

She did not doubt his words, neither did she ask how he knew. She looked at him with pleading eyes. Ephraim just told her “go to your husband,” and was already getting dressed. Before disappearing, he added, “but who knows, maybe I’ll still come for you.”

Now she could – for real, this time – forget about the university, and also about daylight. It was around two weeks after the event, that she started to feel ill, and the doctor diagnosed her with pregnancy. Allison then remembered some bits of secret wisdom which her paramour had mentioned; and which she had, by then, dismissed as wild fantasies.

With unutterable horror, she understood that indeed, he would come for her.


End file.
